Quick Description: The Parish Church of St Cennydd - Founded in the 6th century, displays several stone artefacts, including a stone slab featuring Celtic Knots. St Cennydd's church is located in the centre of the small village of Llangennith, Gower, South Wales.

Long Description:The current church of St Cennydd's fabric is dated from the 11th to 14th century, built on the site, of St Cennydd's Priory. Which has been a place of worship for over 1500 hundred years.

The present church was consecrated in 1102 - when Norman war-lords were building castles and churches all over the Gower Peninsula.

The church is custodian of several stone artefacts, and contains a significant Norman Font, an effigy of a 13th-century Knight in Armour, and what is said to be the grave slab of St Cennydd.

A recently rediscovered medieval niche in the chancel arch, displays a significant carved slab of around the 9th century, featuring intricate Celtic knots. This is said to be the former grave stone of St Cenydd. Until the nineteenth century remodelling of the church, the stone slab was set flat in the chancel floor.

"St. Cenydd was the original Gower boy who made good. Legend has it he was born in the sixth century with a withered leg, cast adrift in a basket on the Loughor estuary, rescued by gulls and reared by angels. Our local boy grew up to found St. Cenydd's priory which accounts for the present building being the largest parish church in Gower.

The Danes burnt it, but our church survives, dominated by its massive 13th century stone tower with saddleback roof. Now wall-mounted inside, a carved slab is reputed to have marked the grave of the saint. Also see the effigy of a De La Mare knight ('the Dolly Mare')." Text Source: (visit link)

"The parish church of St Cenydd now occupies the former priory site and was probably the monks' chapel. The earliest surviving fabric dates from the twelfth century and includes the east wall of the tower; most remnants are from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

1218: Size of community - At this time there were two or three monks at Llangennith.

pre 1223: Illicit affairs - According to Gerald of Wales, a prior of Llangennith brought shame upon the house when he engaged in an illicit affair with a young woman of Gower.

1291: Wealth - According to Pope Nicholas IV's Taxatio Ecclesiastica, Llangennith’s temporalities were assessed at £4 16s and the community had 120 acres of arable land and six cows. ]

1295x1360: Custody - Following the outbreak of war with France, Llangennith was periodically taken into royal custody

1377: Poll tax - Only the prior of the house is listed on the poll tax return.

1413x1421: Custody - The house was seized again during Henry V's reign and taken into royal custody.

c.1434: Custody - By 1434 Llangennith's links with St Taurinus had been severed.

1441: Dissolution - On 16 March 1441 Archbishop Chichele and his colleagues surrendered the house to Henry VI.

1442: Post monastic ownership - On 5 February Archbishop Chichele and his colleagues granted Llangennith and St Clears to the king who duly granted them to the Oxford colleges of Warden and All Souls." Text source: (visit link)